Visiting New York was one of the most amazing experiences of my life, if not ‘the’ most, the sights, the sounds, the smells and the feelings, all incredible and mesmerizing. Sat at the window of my hotel room high in the New York skyline looking down at people, like they are ants, insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I watched six men dressed in high vis jackets, gloves and thick heavy boots, fighting against the bitter cold to lay some tarmac on a car park surface. As they threw down some grit from huge barrels, which had to be moved on a palette, I sat there and watched. The whole job took three days, I sat there every morning before I went out to experience and explore, the task looked so easy to me up there, I felt like I could throw some of their grit from my window and it would cover the whole building in a single stroke. Along with massive scale, comes the illusion of power, It makes you think about things.
Whilst on the Staten Island ferry after having been out on the deck admiring the beauty of both the Statue of Liberty and the amazing New York skyline, illuminated by sparkling lights in the colossal buildings. I went inside the ferry to see the city’s working collective, men and women in suits with briefcases and iphones, coffee shop barristers, builders and all other members of the community making there way back home. Two of them stood out in particular to me, to men who had never met each other before as far as I could make out. One fashioned some heavy steel capped boots, dirty aged jeans and a typical yellow builders helmet, the other similarly dressed in utilitarian garb, but he seemed more nautical like he worked on a port or the docks. As the two men discussed I listened in, they talked of ‘the Jets’ American football team and drinking a nice cold beer at home, I wondered, not what was next for me on my amazing adventure in the big city, but what this mans house was like, what made him tick, and most of all why he was in New York.
Hells Kitchen was a quick stop for us, on the last day we made our way down there to the flea markets held that day, finding nothing of real interest I decided to explore a little further up the road. I discovered a little café, which sold cupcakes and all kinds of interesting homemade foods. The layout of the store its self looked very personal, the owner was a large burley man who wore a red truckers hat, a white T-shirt and some blue denim jeans with suspenders. He and his wife looked like the stereotypical American couple, but I could see that they weren’t commercialized at all, the couple and the café was ‘real’. Something else that really struck me as ironic was that in this quaint little coffee shop, there were pictures stuck up on the wall of English football newspaper stories, David Beckham and even scores from Bolton games.
It seems to me that in New York nearly everyone has a story to tell, the scale of everything was overwhelming yes, but I found myself noticing the smaller things, the fact that I’m not talking about Bergdorf Goodman’s or The Empire State shows this, monumental as they were. The scale makes people more aware of each other, they are friendly welcoming and generally happy, the city has a life of its own. New York I love you.
